


Every Other Strike

by dramatispersonae



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Existential Whump, Other, Possessive Behavior, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29952414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramatispersonae/pseuds/dramatispersonae
Summary: the only thing in this tin is what's on the label.
Relationships: Michael "Mike" Crew & The Vast, Michael "Mike" Crew/Michael | The Distortion, Michael "Mike" Crew/The Spiral
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Every Other Strike

**Author's Note:**

  * For [consumptive_sphinx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/gifts).



> i can have little a ham handed invocation of the themes of the podcast. as a treat.

the thing is, his scar's still a fractal.

the almost-man that haunted him through it is gone ( _forever_ , mike thinks in worship) but the scar is not. he fears catching his fingers slipping along it once more, unable to stop, compelled so strongly he can't think about wanting to stop, wanting to stop but not the right way, the way that actually lets him do it. he fears the storm he can never trust not to not be there.

of course, these feelings aren't based in reality. the heights have overcome the lightning. besides, the infinite truly belongs more to what he now feeds. the lightning man never should have come, never should have _been_ , so now that it's been consumed, it will certainly never come back.

of course, all that makes it so much easier for the twisting deceit.

michael traces mike's scars with nails that split memories of skin, like it can recreate the pathway he followed on the night he drew lightning and throw them both down it. he almost thinks it can, but no, that was _his_ path, it doesn't belong to the embodied thing before him. michael is the wrong kind of unreal, a mismatch in the proportions and varieties of truth and lies. it can't invoke the path.

it can cut more than a memory of skin, as it digs into the meat of his arms with sharp-blunt thumbs. mike cannot muster even a dull hope that these injuries will scar and disrupt the pattern. he knows they won't. he knows he doesn't want them to.

he thinks he knows what michael wants.

he waits a while, just until when its smugness begins to flake off the desperation beneath, and then he drops them through his sky.

he feels the remembered terror, the repulsion at experiencing a feeling not close enough to itself, the loathing, reflecting off the clouds as he is permitted to gorge on the scraps of his sacrifice. a sacrifice he had no concerns about being able to make. his illusions of meaningless, _small_ thoughts are nothing worth the sky's notice. of course he will always practice vertigo this way.

when it leaves him, it seems exactly the same size it always was. it is trying to project false confidence, but it is disorientated, woozy. chewed on, in a way it didn't believe it could be. it stumbles against the door of the café he found it in. it certainly hadn't expected the trap it laid to turn out this way. it had expected mike to be drawn into the café and dance through whatever labyrinth it had prepared, sitting falsely unassuming with a single mug of coffee set before it. waiting for him. it didn't anticipate the sky. it didn't anticipate how mike has changed.

how he no longer has to pretend to be its prey.

 _maybe next time_ , he thinks, exchanging michael's abandoned coffee for a warm cup of tea, _i won't let it leave_.


End file.
